Toshiba puts 3D NAND in mobile devices

With UFS 2.1 BGA SSDs

Toshiba's BiCS3 flash is showing up everywhere. The latest place where the high-density flash will be showing its face is inside smartphones, tablets and other small devices. The company has announced that it's started sampling new UFS 2.1-compliant BGA SSDs that can hit up to 900 MB/s in sequential read.

The new devices will sport from 32 GB up to 256 GB of capacity. The 64 GB package will hit up to 900 MB/s in sequential read and, according to Toshiba, the same variant can write at up to 180 MB/s. The company didn't specify random performance numbers for the BiCS3 devices, but according to the company the performance should be much better (up to 200%) compared the previous-generation hardware. Furthermore, the new chips are going to offer more performance in the same power envelope as their predecessors.

The company says that we should expect the upcoming UFS 2.1 SSDs to be used in smartphones and tablets quite soon. We don't know when products bearing the new BiCS3-based storage will hit the market, but it'll probably happen sooner rather than later.